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Raising Eyebrows

IT wasn’t quite the slip-up (or slip-down, as it were) most people expect during a presidential campaign, but whatever happened to Ron Paul’s eyebrows at Tuesday night’s debate certainly caught some viewers’ attention.

For those of you not yet riveted by the Republican race, Mr. Paul, the dark-horse libertarian with equally dusky brows, was a victim of hot lights, faulty adhesive or merely a devilish optical illusion when his right eyebrow seemed to dip toward the stage at Dartmouth College.

Seen on television, Mr. Paul appeared to have a second, thinner brow under the one headed south, creating a delicate X over his right eye.

Photo

Ron Paul during Tuesday's debate.Credit
Pool photo by Scott Eells

Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman, insisted that Mr. Paul had been the victim of the elements, namely a heavy pollen season in New Hampshire, and called accusations that he’d been artificially enhancing “stupid” and “insulting.”

“Dr. Paul’s allergies acted up a touch,” Mr. Benton said in an explanation that might raise some, you know, questions.

Not that Mr. Paul would be blamed for trying to keep up with bushy brows like Rick Perry’s, whose upper-eye area is full, or Mitt Romney, whose orbital outliers are sometimes speckled with gray. Whatever the cause, eyebrow toupees appear to be a flourishing business. Experts in the field of eyebrow maintenance said that if the falling follicles were artificial, the buck should stop somewhere. Marina Valmy de Haydu, the executive vice president of the Christine Valmy beauty schools, said most glues used to apply false eyebrows were designed to withstand the rigors of stage lights and intense questions about the national debt.

“Those glues are almost indestructible,” Ms. De Haydu said. “So whoever put it on for him did not put it on correctly.”